I am afraid I do not have a clue how to move the material on the 'Livadia'.

I have some additional information on other vessels built on the Clyde ('Alexander Nevsky' renamed the 'Duke of Edinburgh'; the 'Onega': the 'Moskva': and the proposed royal yacht 'Alexandra'). I have no idea where I should post any of these tidbits

I am afraid I do not have a clue how to move the material on the 'Livadia'.

1. Open your message that you wish to move, by clicking on Modify.2. Select the content by pressing concurrently on Ctrl A.3. Copy the selected text on your computer's clipboard by pressing concurrently on Ctrl C.4. Close the message window by clicking on Save.5. Without closing your browser, open WORD or other word processing program.6. Paste the text from the clipboard by pressing concurrently on Ctrl V.7. Save the result as a file.8. Return to the AP forum and open the Livadia - the Yacht topic.9. Start a new message by clicking on Reply.10. Paste the selected text in by pressing concurrently on Ctrl V. Proceed as usual when posting a message.11. Now you have the same message posted twice in two different topics. Go to the original topic (e.g. The Standard), and remove the message. Here you are!------------------[size=10]Note 1: Steps 5 to 7 are not necessary but strongly recommended as a back-up. You know, just in case...Note 2: If the process looks a bit cumbersome, don't be disappointed. It's only for the first dozen of times [/size]

The Livadia was one of the most weird ships to ever sail. It is even listed in a book about strange ships.

It was like a giant floating saucer. In even the slightest sea the ship would heave to and fro like some drunken whale. The design was called a 'turbot'.

It was built because Admiral Popov, was a great believer in this type of ship and he somehow convinced the Tsar that what he needed was a grand yacht built on this design idea. What did the Tsar know about ship design? Nothing! Yes, the Tsar was looking for a more stable design because of some family members that were prone to be seasick.

Yes, the Russian Navy did make some gunboats of the turbot design but they were a disaster. It seems that they were so unstable as a gun platform, that when the ship bounced back and forth the gun was either pointing at the water or high in the sky. It was impossible to aim the gun at a target.

The irony of the whole debacle was that instead of providing a very smooth riding ship with little leaning, he actually made a ship that was the exact opposite!

Instead of stability, he produced a ship of extreme unstability. To imagine how it was, just place a large tea tray in a swimming pool and make a few waves. I get seasick just thinking about it. The result was 'total disaster at sea'.

She sailed only a few times....was tied up at the dock...the elegant furnishings removed and that was that.

That is a great question. I have read about these weird turbot shaped ships in the past. The only thing that I really remember is that this type of hull design might work on very smooth water such as a lake.

I would like to know what Admiral Popoff was imbibing when he designed these nautical wonders. How he ever got it into his head that these designs would actually work is beyond me.

Take one of these things out of the open ocean and stand by for nausea.

the Russian Navy did make some gunboats of the turbot design but they were a disaster.

This is one of them, the Novgorod:Its sistership was initially named Kiev, but later renamed Vice-Admiral Popov - while their inventor was still alive, an unprecedented honor in the history of the Russian navy!

Undoubtedly one of the most remarkable craft afloat is the Russian Czar?s steam-yacht the Livadia . To a Scotch shipbuilding firm belongs the credit of having constructed this unique and splendid vessel, and it is certainly a feather in the cap of Messrs. Elder and Company, the well-known Glasgow shipbuilders, from whose yard the Livadia was launched in July 1880.

One would imagine that the highest point of comfort and luxuriousness has been reached in the accommodation offered by the Livadia ; but this is far from being the only or even the chief respect in which the vessel is remarkable. She is notable from a purely nautical point of view?being the outcome of principles that may be said almost to revolutionise all pre-existing ideas of shipbuilding, though something like the same principle may be found in the circular ironclads of Admiral Popoff.

Hitherto the plan which naval architects have followed, where the desideratum was exceptional speed, was to give the vessel in course of construction length in combination with as fine lines and as perfect proportion as possible. But in the case of an imperial pleasure-boat, like the Livadia, it was an object to obtain an ampler and more drawing-room like accommodation than is compatible with length, narrowness of beam, and fine lines; and the constructors of the Czar?s new yacht have succeeded in securing not only this internal spaciousness and comfort, but also a satisfactory degree of speed.

It was to the united exertions of Admiral Popoff of the Russian navy, and Dr. Tideman of the royal dockyard, Amsterdam, that the design of the Livadia was due. It is not easy in words to convey a distinct impression of this curiously-shaped craft, but our description will, we hope, give the reader a pretty correct idea of the vessel.

The constructors of the Livadia, it is believed, chose a turbot as their model for the hull; and in thus taking a flat fish as a suggestion for their vessel, the builders, as a recent writer on the subject points out, followed no extravagant, though certainly a novel, fancy. In broad terms the Livadia may be described as a wide and shallow oval in shape, half submerged, while over this turbot-shaped raft a superstructure is erected, somewhat similar in appearance to an ordinary vessel, and comprising large, lofty, and sumptuous saloons and other apartments.

The Livadia is 260 feet long, 150 feet broad, and 50 feet deep. She is 11,609 tons burden, and her displacement 4000. The two leading merits of the Livadia, due to its peculiar construction, are?first, that its frame can support a superstructure of almost palatial proportions such as would founder any other vessel; and second, that its great breadth of beam keeps the ship as steady as a ship can possibly be, while, at the same time, its lower lines secure a very good degree of speed.

The Livadia possesses powerful propelling engines. There are three sets of these, each with three cylinders, the diameter being sixty inches for the high pressure, and seventy-eight inches for the low, with a stroke of three feet three inches. As much strength and lightness as possible have been secured for the propellers by constructing them of manganese iron; while steel has been largely employed for the engines and boilers, which are, for their weight, the most powerful possessed by any vessel. The estimated horse-power is 10,500, and the ship, under favourable conditions, can make fifteen knots an hour.

The double water-tight bottom of the Livadia is three feet six inches deep at the centre, and two feet nine inches at each end. In this turbot-like lower part is the machinery, and it is the receptacle also for coals and stores of all kinds. The twofold bottom of the ship comprises forty compartments, and the whole is sufficiently strong, it is believed, to withstand the heaviest weather to which the yacht is likely to be exposed, as well as the strain of her powerful machinery.

The entire length of the upper part of the ship, in which are the imperial apartments, and the quarters of the officers and crew, is 260 feet, and the breadth 110 feet. The crew all told numbers 260. The private apartments of the Czar himself are forward on the main-deck, well away from the heat of the engines and the smell of the machinery. A visitor to the ship is chiefly struck, perhaps, by the height to which the decks rise above the hull, the uppermost compartment of all being fitted out as a reception saloon, in the centre of which a little fountain rises out of a bed of flowers. This portion of the vessel is forty feet above the level of the sea. The apartment is luxuriously appointed in the fashion of the reign of Louis XVI. The drawing-room is furnished in a style of equal sumptuousness, in the Crimean Tartar style; but the rest of the imperial apartments are in a simpler order of decoration. Behind the funnels there is another deck-house, containing the captain?s quarters and rooms for the Grand Duke Constantine. It will thus be seen that the Livadia is literally a floating palace, equipped and decorated with that almost Eastern love of sumptuous display which characterises the Russians as a people.

All the three screws with which the Livadia is furnished are wholly submerged in the water?another novelty in the construction of the vessel. One or even two of these screws might suffer serious injury and the ship still remain manageable.

It is not wonderful that the launch of a craft, at once so splendid and so curious, should have caused much interest and excitement in the neighbourhood in which it took place. A distinguished company witnessed the ceremony, while the crowd which lined the banks of the river Clyde numbered 10,000. A short service was conducted by three priests of the Greek Church, and the bows of the vessel were then sprinkled with holy water. After the conclusion of this ceremony, the yacht received her name from the Duchess of Hamilton, and was then launched. The launch was a complete success, the Livadia taking the water in gallant style, though the task was one of more than ordinary difficulty from the circumstance of the great breadth of the ship?s keel-less bottom, which much increased the friction to be overcome. At the luncheon which concluded the day?s proceedings, Mr. Pearce, the chairman, who represented the firm of Elder and Company, stated that the principle adopted in the building of the Livadia would probably be more useful in the case of ships of war than of merchant vessels, but that builders of the latter might also derive valuable hints from the construction of the new ship. Whether this will prove to be the case time has yet to show.

“Livadia” carried a crew of 260 officers and sailors from the Imperial Navy, and she sailed on her maiden voyage from London to the Crimea with Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich and a number of aristocrats. Missing was Alexander II, the man who had commissioned the curious vessel; only six months before the ship was completed, the Emperor fell victim to an anarchist’s bomb. This initial voyage quickly proved a nightmare. In the Bay of Biscay, the ship encountered heavy seas, and the passengers were tossed about as supposedly stable and seaworthy ship lurched through the waves. Being so low to the water, the decks were constantly awash with water that invaded the state rooms and cabins. By the time the vessel reached the Black Sea, it was so heavily damaged that it had to be pulled by tugs. The constant seasickness, too, left the passengers so weak that many were carried from the vessel when it steamed into Sevastopol. An inspection showed that “Livadia” was damaged nearly beyond repair. Popov, who had endured this maritime nightmare, was overwhelmed by the failure of his much-vaunted ship; no one had thought to conduct any sea trials to determine the vessel’s stability and pitch before its maiden voyage. The Vice-Admiral sadly declared his new, proud ship unsuited except for the most shallow and calm of waters. Alexander III had no use for the vessel, and it remained at Sevastopol before finally being stripped of its elegant fittings. The yacht itself was refitted as a coal barge, serving ports on the Black Sea until it deteriorated to such a state that it was deemed unsafe. For many years, the hull was left to rot, until it was finally broken up and scrapped in 1926.

In 1981 Time-Life Books Inc. published a series of books called "The Seafarers." One book in the series was entitled "The Luxury Yachts." On pages 142-147 it has the beautiful watercolor plans of the Livadia. Main deck, imperial stateroom deck, engine room deck, etc.The picture credits say these were obtained from the National Maritime Museum in London.

Hello, have just found this wonderful site. I am currently researching the Livadia with a view to building a radio-controlled steam model. I have got the Time Life book mentioned, it also features in "Bizarre Vessels" and "The Steam Yachts". Currently awaiting delivery of a US House of Representatives record from 1883 with detailed plans of the vessel. If anyone wishes to share info. would be more than happy.Cheers. Popov.